Il buono, Il brutto, Il cattivo

I wikipedia-ed, wikipediad, wikipedia-d, TJ Whosyamama, that.

THE GOOD
The weather has been great, although it rained today, but I've played ball three times this week and I even made a friend. Hooray for me! Playing pickup ball on a summer afternoon with the guys is one of the most masculine, manly, straight up being-a-dude thing that can possibly exist. You can play 5 games with a guy, give him high fives with your sweaty-ass hand, hell, maybe you even pat him on the ass when he makes a great shot to win the game. But regardless of what takes place between the lines, getting a dude's phone number so you can call him to play ball some other time is just a little bit awkward. It's like...

Guy 1: So, yeah, that was fun. We should play later this week.
Guy 2: Yeah, definitely.
Guy 1: So I have my cell phone with in my bag, but uh...
Guy 2: Yeah, my phone's in my bag too, but it's off.
Guy 1: Oh ok, no, I mean...why don't you give me your number.
Guy 2: Ok, don't you want to put it in your phone?
Guy 1: Nah, I have a good memory. I'll just put it in after I finish having sex later. With a girl.

And that, children, is how you exchange numbers on the basketball court.

In other GOOD NEWS...
I bought a flat screen LCD TV that I'm waiting to have hooked up. Again, hooray. There is a Thai restaurant a block and a half from my apartment, which is something I was very concerned about not having here at school. I did the requisite Pad See Yu test to see how good it was, and it was decent. Probably decent enough for two years. The best Pad See Yu is still at Luscious Thai on 1st Ave between 60th and 61st. There's a very good sneaker store two blocks from my apartment. Gotta love that. Lastly, I never had a car in college or needed one in NYC, and I'm enjoying having one at school, and at $2.78/gallon I leave the gas station only feeling slightly nauseated.


THE BAD
For someone who just arrived on a beautiful college campus I have a lot to complain about. I don't want to sound like a brat, so I'll just get this out of the way.

1. My bed is next to the elevator shaft. It is loud. I am a light sleeper.
2. I have a Labrador-sized hole in my closet. It was temporarily patched up by a man weighing over 500 lbs. He ate half a ham sandwich and put the other half in the hole for later.
3. The hot water in the bathroom is somewhere between non-existent and it's-so-lukewarm-I'd-rather-just-not-have-it-at-all.
4. Repairs on all of these things are not scheduled for another month.

I know I'm going to care a lot less about this once I'm not spending the bulk of my time in my apartment although the shower thing is really going to piss me off. The workers, all eight of them, were so nice it was hard to get mad at them. The interesting thing was when they spoke to me and talked about one another they didn't use names or even "he" or "that feller over there", it was all the "old man", or the "young one". For example....

Me: Why the eff is it going to take a month to get me hot water in the bathroom?
Worker: Well, you gotta speak to the Old Man about that one. We're working as fast as we can, and me and the Young One here are working 10 hour days.
Me: I appreciate you and uh, the Young One helping me out, but this should've been dealt with a long time ago.
Worker: The Young One will be back tomorrow to get you a new showerhead and in the meantime I'm gonna talk with the Old Man to discuss timing.

My question is how do you graduate from "young one". I'll tell you what though, Young One needs to shave his Football mustache (11 whiskers on a side) because he looks like he's 14. Actually, he might be 14.


THE UGLY
If you are looking for a date for prom you probably want to avoid the Walmart in Livonia. Ok, that was kind of mean. I don't want people to get the wrong impression about Livonia, so I'll say that you should probably avoid the Walmart in Bellville as well. It's hard to maintain that heroin chic physique when the 2-gallon red Kool-Aid is on special "Rollback" and it only costs $1.49. And speaking of mustaches, the number of kids running around with Juicy Juice mustaches is just absolutely astounding. I swear to you that my kids will NEVER go to school in the morning looking like they just made out with Ronald McDonald.

So in Walmart I'm in the electronics section because I'm going to buy a flatscreen and I'm there looking, comparing, contemplating. From around the corner comes this 4-toothed woman, and she's 100% talking to herself and she's saying "Ain't nobody gonna stop me today, no sir, I had told them I was gettin' a TV, oooh lawdy, mmm mmm mmm, I love me this silver one right hurrr....". Then from the top of her lungs she yells "Excuse me, salesLADY, hello..." obviously talking to nobody in particular. Well she must've gotten what she wanted because she had a 42" TV, a DVD player, and a huge bag of McDonald's in her cart when she came up to the register. All the while she's holding this wad of cash. When she finally gets to pay she is literally at the register uncrinkling ones and rolling dimes and nickels to pay for it all. And once she realized she couldn't afford the DVD player AND the TV she takes the DVD player out of her cart, turns to the guy behind her and says "I didn't want that no way". And I guess the moral of the story here is two-fold: 1. A free show in a Walmart after a long day of big box shopping is almost priceless, and 2. Who needs teeth when you can buy McDonald's and watch the Price is Right in HD on your 42 inch TV.

Walmart did me right that afternoon. I got my TV, a printer, a fire extinguisher, and some Monterrey Jack. And truth be told, do I really need a TV for entertainment when there's a Walmart right down the road. I think not.